Hostelworld Press Room

Hostelworld.com leading provider of online reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market has scooped 2 awards at the 2010 eircom Spider awards. Hostelworld.com beat off stiff competition from a shortlist of 8 companies in each category, including TV3 and the National Lottery, to take the top honours for both 'Best eBusiness Website' and 'Best Mobile Application' for their iPhone app.

Hosted this year by comedian Jimmy Carr the eircom Spider Awards are an annual event honouring Irish individuals and organisations for their outstanding achievements online and celebrating the successes of the Irish internet and digital media. The awards were judged by a prestigious panel of experts, comprised of leaders from industry, commerce, media and academia. The panel evaluated all the entries on a diverse range of judging criteria including content, structure & navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity as well as overall user experience.

Feargal Mooney, CEO of Hostelworld.com commented on the award wins "We're absolutely delighted to have been awarded not only one but 2 awards at this year's eircom Spider Awards. To have been picked as the best against some top Irish companies in two categories is an honour. At Hostelworld.com we have worked extremely hard to maintain our global market leading position in the online budget accommodation sector, and have done so by constantly innovating and aggressively growing the business, through a number of key initiatives and significant staff expansion, this year alone growing the company by 25%, with further plans for growth through to 2012".

He continued "A major initiative for this year was the relaunch of the Hostelworld.com website in July which has been closely followed by localization of our unique content, further expansion into emerging markets and the opening of a data centre to drive further online performance. Our iPhone app has been a resounding success for us, with downloads doubling month on month since its launch in January of this year. Its popularity was sealed for us when it featured in an apple iPhone commercial in the USA."

About Hostelworld.comThe global market leader for over 10 years, Hostelworld.com is the leading provider of online reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market. It offers confirmed online reservations for over 25,000 hostels and budget hotels in 180 countries worldwide and is the only hostel booking site to offer a service guarantee. The site also offers budget travellers over 3.5 million user reviews, award-winning travel videos & podcasts, free customised city guides, a travel social network and more.
Hostelworld.com is headquartered in Dublin and is fully owned and operated by Web Reservations International Ltd (WRI)
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